Pot Roast and Perseverance: Comparing the LSAT to Marriage

I recently got married, and it’s a lot like the LSAT.

You’ve got to devote a lot of time to both. If you don’t spend a lot of time studying for the LSAT, you won’t do well on it and won’t go to the law school of your choosing. With marriage, you have to spend a lot of time, too. Last week I come home and Deborah asks, “Did you pick up the dry cleaning?” and I says, “No, Deborah, I forgot. I’ll get it tomorrow,” and then she starts talking about how I forgot last time too, and I says, “Deborah, I work too hard to come home to this garbage!” Well, that just set her off, and she starts running her mouth about how I’m always forgetting things, so I just leave to go meet Mike at the bar, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit around listening to Deborah’s garbage. I came back later and she’d actually just gotten angrier and makes me sleep on the couch, and I ended up just getting the dry cleaning the next day anyway, which took all afternoon. Anyways, the moral is you’ll have to spend a lot of time for the LSAT or your marriage, so’s you might as well do it the smart way the first time or it just ends up being more time.

On the LSAT you have to bring a snack on test day. You have to get something with a lot of energy that will get you through the day. When you’re married you’ve gotta pick up your own food, too. You’d think that once you’re married you’d have dinner waiting for you once in a while, but no. Just last week I come home, and it’s Friday, and Friday’s pot roast day, so I come home, and you know what? Pot roast’s in the oven, burning. It smells like smoke everywhere. So I run to the oven, pull it out, and of course it’s ruined. I go into the bedroom, and there’s Deborah lying in bed, asleep. I wake her up, and she just starts crying. Anyway, I work too hard to come home to this garbage, so I just go meet Mike at the bar. What I should’ve done was just gotten my own dinner at Boston Market on the way home. They got those new mashed potatoes with bacon and cheese right in ‘em. Same thing on the LSAT, you can’t expect them to provide a snack for you, because they won’t.

The LSAT’s all about perseverance. Sometimes it seems hard, but you just have to keep going. Keep up the work, and things will work out. Learn from your mistakes. Same thing with marriage. A couple nights ago I come home, and yeah, I’d put a few away with Mike at the bar, so what? Anyway, I come home, and Deborah’s packed her bags, says she wants a divorce. And I say, “Deborah, who you gonna stay with? Where you gonna go? You ain’t got no friends.” She started crying again, but I’ll tell you what she didn’t do – leave. That’s perseverance.